Monthly Archives: November 2016
This year both major presidential candidates claimed Manhattan as home. It is possible, though, that the spread of a less visible force also named for Manhattan is part of what shook this land, a sort of delayed impact explosion. Why did so many Christians vote Republican in a year when the candidate exhibited behaviors that would have disqualified in other years, and that we hope will be able to disqualify again in the future? In part because the opposition so severely disrespected three out of the three principles this seminal document championed.
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The Manhattan Declaration was published just before Thanksgiving in 2009, and I first heard about it when a Catholic priest spoke about it at an ecumenical Thanksgiving service in a Baptist church. Until a friend recently mentioned Chuck Colson’s impact, I had almost forgotten that this was one of the influences that first alerted me that the man I was studying, Roger Williams, was onto something still relevant today with his insistence on religious liberty. Chuck Colson was one of the three primary drafters of the Manhattan Declaration.
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In eloquent language hard to ignore the Manhattan Declaration champions the principles that human life is sacrosanct, an ideal for Christian marraige long lost to American culture, and religious freedom for all. I wonder if the DNC knew its platform managed to threaten these Christians with being forced to violate all three. Eliminating the Hyde amendment would have forced Christians to pay taxes that would have funded abortions. The DNC platform itself called any Christian with a conscience to obey their own scripture bigots when they forbid discrimination against forms of sin documented in the New Testament as against nature. Finally, there was a written intent to eliminate accommodation for religious freedom by the Obama leader at the US Commission on Civil Rights, Martin Castro.
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The Manhattan Declaration is a joint proclamation of Orthodox, Catholics, evangelical Christians. That is a broad section of the electorate even today. While it has over half a million signatories, many of those are leaders of congregations inspired by the principles it embodies. After reading this document it is impossible not to know why Pope Francis says a society that condones abortion the worst crime of all, why Christian marraige has to be differentiated from civil marraige as the USA now defines it, and why we can never give to Caesar what belongs to God.
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It has been a long time since 2009. Some, e.g. R. C. Sproul, didn’t sign this document because they said it confused the special grace for reborn Christians with the common grace meant for all mankind, and it does have that confusion. However, Kuyper noted that it is always appropriate for Christians, who were given that special grace as a gift, to champion nobler ideals to the broader population — even if they should not always be made into civil law. Moreover, Christians know they must never violate their Christian conscience — and no two are exactly alike — and so they are well motivated to be a champion for religious freedom for all.
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I know the language in the Manhattan Declaration made me think of these issues at different level than I had before. I am thankful for the witness this document provides, even today.
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To this day a search for the Manhattan Declaration brings up no results in places like the Apple app store. Apple forced it “underground” due to a petition with 7,000 signatories. Other corporations are less transparent about what they de-emphasize.
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I can’t help but wonder if the DNC had understood that above all, Christians of this conscience would never give to the state what belongs to God, they might have wanted to make a little more room in the tent.
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Originally published on Medium in the publication About Rekindled. Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
Toleration carries a connotation of putting up with something that smells, something unattractive. Russell Moore in Onward and John Piper on his blog point out that toleration or mere civility is not enough, that it is kindness that is the objective in how to treat others of differing conscience (faith, morality values). Both of these authors are speaking to followers of Jesus. Kindness in fact is at the heart of many religions that have some form of the golden rule, and sets a high but voluntary bar for our behavior.
When Roger Williams spoke of toleration, however, he was not trying to set the highest good for individual behavior, but rather trying to specify what is unacceptable: persecution for cause of conscience. It is the difference between legislating sobriety vs. deciding driving while intoxicated must be illegal. His proposition goes more as follows. Kindness is best. Some types of unkindness are legal. Intolerance due to cause of conscience should be illegal in civil law. He was championing the separation of church and state to prevent the real and present persecution for cause of conscience in his day. He recognized that human groups operating in the collective can quickly become cruel to those that do not succumb to the group’s thinking pattern. He sought to provide protection that would allow exclusion from a church or other similar gathering but not from civil society. He would have required that the tolerated be able to have their civil needs met.
Toleration can often be often accomplished by accommodation. In a diverse work environment, if one person needs to leave on Friday afternoon to observe Sabbath, others of a different conscience can be scheduled to work. Corporations have achieved practical accommodation in civil society for years, sometimes at significant expense, to keep the peace and provide respect for individual employees. Small businesses have less leeway to provide accomodation — but could be encouraged to band together to provide a similar level of civil function. The challenge comes when it costs money to accommodate–when someone of a different conscience is not available at the same skill level, in the same location, or at the frequency the market demands.
Does toleration include freedom of association? Some freedom of association does not disrupt civil peace as it could be accommodated–as when if one baker does not agree to serve you due to conscience there are others close by that can. When it cannot be accommodated (there is no one willing in good conscience to serve the need at hand) then society has a choice to require freedom of association be sacrificed to meeting civil needs or to expect otherwise legal behavior to be forfeited. Often we’ve chosen the former, and in modern language we would call that civil rights. However, we have not found a solid boundary where an individual’s rights are worth sacrificing freedom of association, but rather an expanding moving target. Reliance on accommodation of conscience vs. exercising rights enables minimization of sacrifice and maximizes freedom of association. However, in our constitution freedom of association is never made absolute. That is not one of the freedoms in the first amendment. The first amendment includes the freedom to have your conscience, to gather with others that have that conscience, to exercise that conscience in public, to talk about it, be talked about in the press, and to complain when your civil peace has been violated because of conscience, but you are not protected once you disrupt other’s civil peace and therefore are not guaranteed freedom of association. Civil peace is not however deemed harmed merely by hearing words you disagree with (speech is protected).
Roger Williams’s contention was that the state could never be tolerant if one form of conscience was sanctioned over another. He limited the function of the state to keeping a civil peace. The issue becomes most difficult when the definition of civil peace is muddled–as in the abortion issue. The pro-life side includes the unborn people and pregnant women in the set of people to be protected by civil peace, while prochoice based law does not recognize unborn people to have human rights and only recognizes pregnant women.
Tolerance is not sufficient to create or demonstrate the highest good, but it is preferable to persecution, in a diverse and fallen world. I’ll close with the words of Roger Williams himself deriving that tolerance is not itself evil, as God does it and God is not evil.
Roger Williams on toleration:
Sufferance of evil is not for its own sake but for the sake of Good
For God’s own glory he suffers [i.e., permits or endures] the Vessels of Wrath Romans 9
Though He be of pure eyes and he can behold no iniquity
Yet his pure eyes
patiently and quietly
behold and permit
all the idolatry and prophanity
all thefts and rapes
all the whoredom and abominations
all the murders and poisonings
yet for his glory’s sake he is patient and long permits.
For his people’s sake
The next good in his Son
He is oftentimes pleased to permit and suffer the wicked to enjoy a longer reprieve
He gave Paul all the lives that were in the ship
He would have granted Sodom a longer permission had there been 10 righteous
Had he found some to stand in the gap he would have spared others
He gave Jezebel a time or space
For his Glory sake he permitted longer great sinners, who afterward have perished in their season
Ahab, Ninevites, Amorites and more
It pleased the Lord to permit
the many evils against his own honorable ordinance of Marriage in the world
to suffer that sin of many wives of Abraham, Jacob, David, Solomon
with an expression that seems to give approbation
Though we find Him sometimes dispensing with his law
We never find him denying Himself
Or uttering a falsehood
Therefore it crosseth not an absolute rule
To permit and tolerate
Toleration will not hinder our being Holy as He is Holy in all manner of conservation
Even the permission of the souls and consciences of all men in the world
God suffers men like fishes to devour each other
The wicked to flourish
Sends the tyrants of the world to destroy the Nations and plunder them of their riches
Two sorts of commands
Moses gave positive rules both spiritual and civil
He also gave some not positive but permissive for the common good
(e.g. Bills of Divorcement)
So the Lord Jesus expoundeth on it
Moses for the hardness of your hearts suffered or permitted, a toleration.
Williams, Roger. The Complete Writing of Roger Williams, Volume 3, ed. Samuel L. Caldwell, “The Bloudy Tenant,” (Paris, Arkansas: The Baptist Standard Bearer Inc., reprinted in 2005, originally printed in 1867), p. 166.
Originally published on Medium in the publication About Rekindled. Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
Update: Nov. 16, 2016: While she does not represent the veteran whose situation is described by Bobby below, the office of Kyrsten Sinema responded to provide help. Her office provided the following escalation steps for any veteran who has contacted his or her own congressperson and yet the issue remained unresolved:
1)Contact the House Committee of Veteran’s Affairs: https://veterans.house.gov/contact
2) File an online complaint at the Office of the Inspector General. http://www.daig.pentagon.mil/readytofile.aspx
Thanks Rep. Sinema!
Below is the original guest post from Bobby Wightman-Cervantes, descendent of the Wightman’s portrayed in Rekindled.
Please share this post on your favorite media. Please use the information in this post to contact your congressman, or any other organization that may be able to help. Please support initiatives to allow private health care paid by the Veteran’s Administration.
My brother Clinton’s $400,000 is being stolen by lawyers and judges, while he dies in a cesspool of a nursing home being denied all medical care. The Texas Observer has done two articles and the abuses by the judges and lawyers against our seniors and our Republican governor refuses to act. Who by the way by law oversees the guardianship program. he has assigned three investigators to investigate what has been found to be millions in stolen money. It is not just the money. Clinton has $400,000, and 100% medical coverage from TRICARE. He did two tours in Vietnam. He retired Army. You cannot communicate with Congress. Everything is passed on to people who do nothing to help. Please help me to make this go viral. We either stand with our veterans or do not. Stop posting the real heroes are veterans if you are not willing to stand on the front lines to defend them against the inept VA and corrupt legal system which steals their money and leaves them to die in cesspool nursing homes when they have money for top notch nursing homes.
VETERAN’S DAY FEELS LIKE ANOTHER PHONY HOLIDAY TO BENEFIT OUR POLITICIANS WHILE OUR VETERANS ARE LEFT HOMELESS AND WITHOUT PROPER MEDICAL CARE
If you care for our Veterans you will call your Congressman to complain. For this case, that would be Congressman Vela, whose Veteran’s Day post feels especially hypocritical. When I went to him he defended his staff for allowing the VA liaison to claim the law required I transport my brother 9 hours for a physical to Harlingen and then 9 hours back to his nursing home. Congressman Vela shakes like a man facing the firing squad when he has to face the bureaucratic process. If in the process our veterans suffer, so be it is Congressman Vela’s response. The truth I got from General Counsel from the VA. The VA had to send a doctor to my brother’s nursing home. Even that did not happen because the doctor hired by the VA refuses to go to nursing homes because they obstruct the process. So he remains without the physical. The nursing home lawyer called me to tell me they will never allow him to see his neurologist. He is two years behind on his neurological exam for lesions on the brain and the nursing home is allowed to block his appointment. The state of Texas investigated and found there is no abuse when a nursing home prevents a patient from seeing their doctor. Texas is either corrupt or brain-dead.
I have been at the VA when mentally ill patients are escorted out by security because they cannot get care. The VA has no time for the mentally ill patients most in need. So they have their police escort them out, and if they resist they are arrested. I cannot wait until I am 65 and can pay for medicare. Right now Part A-F is about $550 a month. I will certainly pay for it rather than to ever have to go back to the VA.
My brother remains without treatment. I spoke to him a few weeks ago to tell him his daughter has stage three breast cancer. He said not his problem. That is not my brother. They refuse to allow him to see anyone for Alzheimer’s or dementia. They will not allow him to see his neurologist to see the damage the brain lesions are doing. He got real mad I have not been to visit, but I have an email threatening me if I go near him. His court appointed lawyer billing down his estate made it clear, the family is not to talk with him or visit him. I explained it to my brother and he lost it. His court appointed lawyer refuses to get him medical care. He cannot even get a flu shot. The state of Texas investigated and found no abuse.
Two years ago the VA told me they were working on the paperwork to appoint me to manage his affairs. When I call for a status I am told it is still being worked on. How is that possible?
I REFUSE TO HELP THE POLITICIANS TO LIE TO THE PEOPLE AND VETERANS TO GET VOTES. IF YOU CARE ABOUT OUR VETERANS CALL YOUR CONGRESSMAN AND TELL HIM/HER TAKE ACTION TO SERVE OUR VETERANS
Originally published on Bobby’s Facebook. Let Bobby know of any action you’ve taken via Facebook or at bobbywc58@yahoo.com.
Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
A Review of the Third Edition of Women in the Church by Andreas J. Kostenberger & Thomas R. Schreiner
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It is possible in the USA that we’ll have a woman president next week, but it is also possible we’ll have just eliminated the possibility for at least four more years. So it is a poignant time to ruminate on women in authority in the church, since the state has advanced so far.
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Women in the Church, 3rd Ed. (make sure it is the 3rd Edition) is a careful project with first class research. From the roles of women in Ephesus to studies of Greek word usage, there is readable derivation of well thought out points. Actually, Women in the Church provides an amazing and voluminous amount of research underlying seven verses in the Bible. Just seven! And after all that the conclusion is highly comforting to the layperson Christian who wants to read the Bible on their own: the words meant what they appear to say, and they say what they mean.
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That means Paul really did say in 1 Tim 2: 9–15 (NASB):
“Likewise, I want women to adorn themselves with proper clothing, modestly and discreetly, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly garments, but rather by means of good works, as is proper for women making a claim to godliness. A woman must quietly receive instruction with entire submissiveness. But I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man, but to remain quiet. For it was Adam who was first created, and then Eve. And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. But women will be preserved through the bearing of children if they continue in faith and love and sanctity with self-restraint.”
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Even in the most confusing verse, apparently Paul really did say women would be saved through childbirth so long as they continue in faith etc., and the word “saved” is the same one used in “saved by faith”. Other meanings are rejected for good reason. For women without children, this is a hard verse. To this end Women in the Church extends the interpretation based on other scripture and posits Paul was not limiting women teaching unbelieving men in day-to-day settings, and that evangelism is an approved calling for women and produces second births. I would add to that, given the tarry of the Lord, that the entire church (the bride of Christ) is saved by continueing second births, and since Paul did use plural he may have intended that analogy.
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The challenge of the interpretation comes down to application in today’s world, where we almost have a culture that no longer limits women’s roles by gender. The marketing for the book promised a discussion about the application of these verses. They seemed proud of their “discussion.” However, the only participants are people that currently champion complementarian thinking. That is not a discussion, it is a chorus. How I would like for them to have included an N. T. Wright or a key feminist theologian that subscribes to Sola Scriptura.
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Even though they provide the ingredients for reconsidering women speaking in the church today, they seem blind to putting them together:
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1. Paul says “I do not allow” (some translations say “permit”). The key word is “I”. That is a big qualifier. It means he is conveying his decision based on what he can see of his own culture. In other places he uses much stronger wording on other issues when he wants to. The strongest is the “As I live, says the Lord…” of Romans 14:11. For recent insights, he says, “I know and am persuaded” in Romans 14:14. Most other uses of the word “I” are his own actions: “I thank, I serve, I long, I intend, I may reap, I do not understand [someone’s else’s bad logic]” Moses uses “You shall not” for the biggest commands from God. The phrase “God did not permit” is used for comtempory actions as in God did not permit harm in a situation. The clear reading of the phrase is that Paul is making the statement in his own authority, and he is not sure it will be for all time in all places.
2. Because Paul is not sure this command is for all time, he gives his reasoning so that we can check it for our time. He says it was Adam that was created first, and then Eve. As Women in the Church points out, Paul lived in a culture of primogeniture. The firstborn living son inherited. So being first born meant you were the child responsible for keeping the inheritance together and owning the estate. “Adam being first” would mean in their eyes it would be Adam that should be held responsible, independent of gender. It is true that God spoke first to Adam, but he got to consequences for both of them. He clearly did not hold only Adam responsible, as Women in the Church points out, just as he did not hold Eve responsible alone. So a key flag Paul points to as to whether we need to make the same decision as Paul does, is: do we live in a culture of primogeniture? No, many of us do not. The implication being that if we do not, we may consider making a different decision in our time for our culture.
3. The next thing Paul says is: “And it was not Adam who was deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression.” Women in the Church correctly points out that Adam seems to be standing right there as Eve is deceived, but does not choose to intervene when Satan converses with Eve. And God had given the instruction to Adam, who then presumably had taught it to Eve. So Eve had the first second hand translation on earth, and it had already lost some of its power. No wonder Paul wants to be sure the women are at church learning from the best along with the men! While Eve is first to transgress, she is not only. And while Paul is silencing women before men here as a result, a later council will silence all teaching not compatible with the canon of scripture, even from men. Paul couldn’t do that — they didn’t have the canon yet. Again, his decision is time-bound by a situation we no longer have.
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We have the canon. We don’t have primogeniture. Yes, Paul silenced women from preaching and where they would have authority over believing men in his day. That doesn’t mean it is the right thing to do now!
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One place the book seems equivocal is that they want to treat teaching and having authority over men separately, after a great deal of linguistic analysis. The proof seems conclusive in chapter 3 on both terms being positive (it is referring to all teaching, not bad teaching, and all authority over men, not unassigned authority). Women in the Church points out that we must be consistent with the rest of scripture, and so they also point out that women teach other women in public in other scripture, and so all teaching in public cannot be the correct interpretation. Still, because the book takes “teaching” and “exercise authority” separately, they say women cannot be assigned authoritative positions in a church, such as elder. In 1 Tim. 3:12 and Titus 1:6 women were not assumed to be elders, as elders were described as heads of households, assumed to be a subset of men — it says they could have at most one wife and does not say husband. However 1 Tim. 2 is the place it says “I do not permit”. In contrast, Ephesians 5:4 NASB says “there must be no filthiness or silly talk”. If we took a similar way of interpreting the concepts separately we would conclude there could be no humor! The NASB notes on Ephesians 5:4 say that is not the correct interpretation, however. So what I find confusing is why it is so clear that the terms were meant separately as opposed to together.
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Dr. Leahy, my favorite math professor in college, taught me a key insight. He said, always watch a proof case for the point at which they say, “it is clear that” — it is the place the speaker has taken a short cut. It is the most likely place for error. That is how I felt after reading this book. In a culture of primogeniture, in a time where women had no control over pregnancy and did not often live past age 40 and spent most of their lives rearing children, Paul made a decision to limit women’s speaking roles and excercise of authority over men. It is not so clear that is the Biblical answer today considering other scripture like Galations 3:28, that we are all adopted inheriting children of God. If we really believed in the priesthood of all believers, we might feel obligated to reconsider artificial gender based restrictions. Maybe in this 500th year of the reformation, we’ll reconsider the roots of the radical confirmation of the full humanity and full renewal in salvation of women that is so apparent in the gospels.
Originally published on Medium in the publication We are all Overcomers. Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
Trigger warning: this is not a comfortable topic.
The scariest line I ever read from Abraham Kuyper was “Husbands, rule your wives.” [1] He said it in the context of what to do when they were frustrated over matters to which men are not assigned control, like election outcomes and a king’s actions. He was actually trying to encourage men’s submission to governments and to men and women teachers! He said it appearing to understand the victim would feel the full force of the man’s frustration at a fallen world and would use that to make his local kingdom forcefully, even violently, disciplined. This is what happens when scripture is misread [2]. Even Abraham Kuyper didn’t understand mutual submission or sacrificial servant leadership the way the Bible is interpreted by complementarians today. Many culturally conservative people who are not theologians still misread it this way, and that’s dangerous. The person to be afraid of in most cases is not a stranger, it is those with power in your own household. Apparently that fear is all too real in about a third of American households, the number of households where someone is abused.
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In some of those households, the men think they can tell their women how to vote. With early voting, standing over a person casting a ballot and forcing a particular vote at risk of violence is a risk that should not be ignored. It is a grave hole in the early voting plan. These households may have corrupted forced voting and no one will know unless the victim is willing to speak up. Worse, the actual danger of violence in domestically abusive situations goes way up once the victim does speak up. Lives could be at risk if support systems are not strong enough to protect victims.
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When I came to Arizona I thought early voting was very convenient and a really cool way for working people and immobile people to vote so that turn-out rates would go up. Now, I no longer support it. The signature match process is ripe for corruption as no one’s signature is exactly the same from envelope to envelope and it very public here who is which party. Worse, you don’t know if the person filling out the form was doing it at gunpoint. The stress in households where the men believe the women are obligated to submit to their leadership is very high right now.
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The disgust of most of most women at the allegations of Trump groping is palpable. Working women — especially old ones — learned long ago to take the heat or get out of the corporate kitchen — and while still disgusted are less likely to be single issue voters with disgust as that one issue. We learned long ago there is a time and a way to object and a time to get along and take one for the team. Apparently stay-at-home women are not similarly exposed and their consciences remain more sensitive, as do younger women and some church leaders. Yet in the case of women, their men are more likely to be the very people who believe they can tell their women how to vote.
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I believe both candidates are compromised by allegations that if true would disqualify them or make them impeachable. I also believe none of us will know guilt or innocence before the election as the wheels of properly done justice move excruciatingly slowly. I therefore vote on platform, and count on our justice system to work after the election. I do not believe the American system intends households to vote together as one — we have women’s suffrage so that women can vote their consciences. I believe we must begin to have a tax penalty for nonvoters and eliminate early voting if we want high turnout and integrity voting.
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Our politically correct way of speaking led us to believe we are more evolved than we really are. Fortunately, the truth is out now for all to see. I would rather see the hate and privilege and be able to fight it openly than have all this nice political speak that meant nothing. Voting is too precious for convenience.
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Originally published on Medium in the publication We are all Overcomers. Order historical fiction novel Rekindled with the button below.
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1. Bratt, James D., editor. Abraham Kuyper A Centennial Reader, Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co. (February 13, 1998), p. 138.
2. Genesis 3:16 records the curse on women after the fall. It does say “Your desire shall be for your husband and he shall rule over you.” Like thorns in the ground this is part of a curse that is not part of the good original creation, and like all the curse we strive to eliminate or control the consequence–and since the time of Jesus we have been ever the more successful in this as his arrival was the beginning of the breaking through of the renewed kingdom. The sect of Christianity that is complementarian (other Christians dispute that even these interpretations apply in modern times) use a different part of scripture to affirm the husband’s leadership in the home: namely that in Genesis 3:9 even though Eve ate the apple first God calls out the man and punishes him first. Paul in his primogeniture based culture also notes that Adam was the first of mankind to be created in 1 Timothy 2:13 in affirmation of male leadership in family and public church settings. Biblical servant leadership is not autocratic rule that and should not serve as an outlet for frustrations and there are many books that explain this put out by the Council for Biblical Manhood and Womanhood.
